Identification of Potential Zones for Solid Waste Disposal in Jos South Local Government Area of Plateau State, Nigeria

Disposal is a critical phase in the management of municipal solid waste, due to unavailability of suitable facilities to treat and dispose of the large amount of municipal solid waste generated daily in metropolitan cities. Improper municipal solid waste disposal locally, cause environmental impacts such as contamination of soil, water pollution, and increase methane emissions. In this study, an attempt has been made to use GIS and remote sensing to identify high potential zones for solid waste disposal in Jos South Local Government Area of Plateau State between 2019 and 2020. Primary data and secondary data were used for this study. The position data of the existing dumpsites in the study area were acquired in-situ with a handheld Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver. The secondary data consists of NigeriaSAT-X, geological, administrative maps, Google map, hydro-geophysical data and Shuttle Radar Topographic Mission (SRTM) images. Thematic layers considered in this study include drainage, road and land use/land cover, lithology and geology. The dumpsite point (X, Y) was imported as shapefile and superimposed on the study area boundary to show the existing location. Digital image segmentation of NigeriaSAT-X and geology dataset was carried out to derive the land use/ land cover and geology classifications of the study area. Lithological analysis was carried out using Kriging Method to interpolate the hydro-geophysical data. The slope, land/use, geology, drainage, road, waterbody, built-up and lithology were reclassified and overlaid using Weighted Sum Overlay Method a Spatial Analyst tool in ArcGIS 10.4 to generate the potential zones for solid waste disposal. The result shows the potential zones for solid waste disposal and characterized into unsuitable, less suitable, moderately suitable, suitable and highly suitable.